and this hour, two leaders that want people to mask up. how does the story end? we will ask the mayor of miami and a judge of dallas county, texas. it's a story bound to change minds about getting the shot. this is "american voices." first up this hour, new answers to the long-asked question of how far donald trump was willing to go to stay in power. through testimony before the senate judiciary committee and the doj this weekend, trump's former acting attorney general, jeffrey rosen, said one of his deputies, jeffrey clark, tried to help trump subvert the 2020 election results to subject doubt into the results. you remember last month when the

oversight committee released handwritten notes detailing a call between trump and top doj officials. he told them to, quote, leave the rest to him and his congressional allies. chair of the judiciary committee, senator dick durbin on cnn today detailing the seven-hour meeting with rosen. >> he was being asked by the white house, the leadership in the white house to meet with certain people who had these wild, bizarre theories of why the election was invalid and he refused to do it. i will have to say history will be very kind to mr. rosen when it's all over. when he was initially appointed i didn't think that was case and i was wrong. >> as we learn more about trump's attempt to hold on to power, remember what he and the republican party call themselves, the party of "law & order," and it's not what

republicans want these days. instead they pine for a strongman who with kaeld power of the state against the maga base's political foes and who would deploy the police to coddle. joining me now to discuss investigative journalist, and a former u.s. attorney who is also an msnbc legal analyst. what does this tell us about how close we were the a coup here in america? >> well, it's interesting, first, that he got in the door as quickly as he did. there are efforts from telling him to tell his story where trump's lawyers are trying to assert executive privilege. he clearly is concerned that there's perhaps crimes occurring here or at least some very

significant efforts to commit fraud in the election. based on what we already know, the notes about just say the election was corrupt and leave it to me to do the rest. the letter jeffrey clark prepared to six states giving them the road map to throw out the election, and so far out of the lane of what the justice department is supposed to do. i can only imagine what additional details he had during those seven hours and i am dieing to hear what they are. i think we have only scratched the surface will publicly known information. >> you and the rest of us. senator blumenthal. listen. >> the president trump mounted a pressure campaign that was absolutely relentless and brutal, and personally involved and directly aimed at the department of justice, seeking

to weaponize it to overthrow the election. >> so trump worked to break the doj, did his relentless attacks on the damage the institution and what will it take to undo the damage? >> well, i think because of honorable people like jeffrey rosen and his deputy, richard donahue, and we saw in the reports that jeffrey clark who was the acting attorney general for the civil division was only too happy to try and help, so it does seem we narrowly skated away from something that could have been absolutely historic and tragic in terms of free democracy. i think the next step needs to be to tell the story. they reported this information to the inspector general of the justice department and the senate judiciary committee will no doubt continue to investigate and uncover the facts. if that is true that president trump was trying to break the

doj and use it. possibly even racketeering, and all of those things need to be considered. >> i want to circle back to gop hypocrisy when it comes to, quote, law and order. she argues a party should not be trusted with power. especially as we see republic-led states try to change election rules in their favor. >> it's important to note that this is part of a pattern, what trump allegedly did with the doj is something he did with the department of homeland security. having homeland security go after protesters in portland, for example, and obliterating the normaler hierarchy of that important department for protecting homeland security. underlying all of this is the desire to preserve white male dominance and white male

supremacy at the expense of the safety and well-being of communities of color, whether it's immigrants or black communities within the united states, and also underlying all of this is the presumption of the genetic superiority of whites. they do not want black voters or latino voters or asian-american voters who were responsible for voting trump out of office, they don't want those votes to count or matter and it's a slow disenfranchisement and an endangerment of their lives. >> i want to look here at the garden, he says the right says it beliefs in free societies and in hungry higher education is understate control so liberals cannot pollute the minds of the young, and in hungry corruption runs from the elevation of a childhood friend into the every

day bribes ordinary hungarians must pay to receive health care. elections are gerrymanders and judges are chosen for their loyalty rather than competence. what do you make of the rising fascination of or apawn? >> i mean, part of the reason they are so fascinated by him is because he fights to preserve, you know, the white male dominance, the white male supremacy, and it's just part of the same that we have been seeing where -- it's very much fascism. demonizing of the press, demonizing of communities of color, and targeting them systematically through law enforcement, and not caring about the enforcement of laws except when it's in regards to black and brown people, and

constantly highlighting instances of black and brown crimes, which is straight out of white supremacists and fascists play books where they create the impression in the minds of normal people that don't normally embrace white racism, and they embrace the idea that black and brown people are more violent than white people, which is false and contrary to what all the research has shown, and this is how they slowly brainwash the masses into embracing fascism, and into embracing out right white supremacist, extremists rule. >> to tie these threads together, on top of the new testimony from former doj officials we have the investigation into the phone call between the trump and georgia's top election officials, and there are his actions on january 6th. you wrote a piece for "the

washington post" to follow investigating trump, and it reads in part, now that trump is out of office the doj's view that sitting presidents cannot be indicted no longer shields him. attempted coups cannot be ignored, and if garland's justice department will regard the law, nobody cannot be above it. what possible charges against trump could an investigation lead to? >> well, i think there are a number of them. one is a conspiracy to defraud the united states. that's a charge of mueller brought against the research internet agency in its efforts to throw the 2016 election, and that's trying to simply obstruct the administration of government, and in this instance the 2020 election. and there's the possibility of an obstruction of an official proceeding on january 6th. there are laws that prohibit anybody from committing voter fraud, which includes defrauding

the people of the state from the outcome of their election. the big ones, of course, are seditious conspiracy and inviting insurrection, and those are very rarely charged but if the facts support those charges then as we argued in that piece the justice department should not be afraid to bring them for fear of political appearances. >> so much to continue to follow. jean, barbara, thank you both. we have a close eye on the senate where we could see movement at this hour to pass that infrastructure bill. senator holland tells us where things stand, coming up. and then states working to mask up their communities as their governors refuse to mandate masks. first, richard lui with the other big stories we are tracking. >> officials in south dakota say this year's sturgis motorcycle rally is bringing its biggest crowd in years, and officials

fear it could be a super spreader, and the country averages 100,000 cases per day, a spike not seen since february. wildfires in greece forcing the evacuations of hundreds. the largest on the island of evia, and the country's prime minister says the heat wave is the worst in three decades. and one actress has died after battling cancer for four years, and she was 70 years old. more "american voices" right after this break. need. how much money can liberty mutual save you? one! two! three! four! five! 72,807! 72,808... dollars. yep... everything hurts. only pay for what you need.

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a major setback in the fight against covid-19. the united states ones again averaging more than 100,000 new cases per day. new infections haven't been this high since february. our health care workers are once again on the front lines battling the surge. new data shows nearly 14,000

covid patients are in florida hospitals and this comes as some florida schools are fighting the governor's ban on mask mandates, and in texas local leaders are challenging their governor's mandate ban. dr. anthony fauci today telling nbc news he's hopeful the fda will soon give the vaccines full approval. >> i hope -- i hope, i don't predict, but i hope it will be within the next few weeks. i hope it's within the month of august. if that's the case, you're going to see the empowerment of local enterprises giving mandates, and that could be colleges, universities, places of business, a whole variety, and i strongly support that. the time has come as we have got to go the extra step to get people vaccinated. >> joining us now to discuss the rise in infections in florida and texas, miami mayor, francis

suarez, and i will start with you and the latest on the situation in miami. what you are hearing from providers on how the health care system is holding up and what worries you most about the new surge in cases? >> well, what worries me is all the different matrix are up, the hospitalizations are up and new cases are up and the positivity, which is the other metric we look at, are up. the good news is we are having a very high vaccination percentage in our population. most vulnerable, 65 and older, have received one dose. 99%. and the second dose, 84%. so it's extremely high. if they are 18 and older fully vaccinate is almost 75%. 88% with one dose. i think, you know, the message is resonating that the best defense right now that anybody could have is to get vaccinated, and the statistics on the vaccination are demonstrating

that this is right now a pandemic of the unvaccinated, and 99% of people that are vaccinated are not feeling serious complications. >> this question, mayor, of how to get people vaccinated and unvaccinated, and the mayor of miami-dade county mandated weekly testing for unvaccinated county workers. do you agree with that move? >> we have done something similar. we said if you are not vaccinated, and we have a mask mandate for all of our employees, and all of our employees need to wear a mask unless you show you are vaccinated. essentially we are doing something very similar and we want to make sure our employees are safe, and we have a high percentage of our employees that are unvaccinated, unfortunately, much higher than the actual averages we just talked about and that's something that concerns us, because people get sick and they have to call out

and we don't want our other employees or residents or families to be in jeopardy. >> and a dallas county commissioner is suing you over a mask mandate. can you tell us what went down? >> i require masks in the commissioner's court, and it's our council that overseas county government and he refused to wear it and i had him removed and had him watch the meeting virtually, and now the texas attorney general joined a suit to remove me from office, and at stake is whether or not governor abbott's orders that ban mask mandates not only in government but in schools, and ban hospitals and others from requiring vaccinations are enforceable. i say they are not. i say you can't -- you can respond to an emergency, but what governor abbott and the republicans in austin are doing now is they are not responding

because they have polls that tell them they will be rewarded if they fail to respond and stop the locals from responding, and so i am challenging that. it will play out in court. >> what is interesting to me, mayor, is what the judge just said that a lot of what is happening is going to play out in courts. while it does, it leaves local leaders like yourself in the state of florida in the position of running up against the limit of what is being set by the state government, and what do you make of your own governor's ban on mask mandates? >> i always have been a proponent of masks from the very beginning. i also commended the governor in the back of the pandemic when he allowed local governments to make decisions, and he came to miami and urged people to follow

the mask mandate that we had in place at the time, so you know, at the beginning of the pandemic i thought he did a good job of allowing local governments, which is frankly a conservative principle to allow governments to the closest people to make decisions. miami is being -- extremely dense, and so i think it's something that given the nature of where we are, the governor may want to rethink. >> in your sense of why he pivoted, why that change of heart, mayor? >> i don't put myself in the minds of any other elected officials. all i can tell you is it's something where he and i had conversations at the time, and i tried to show him very specific data that showed that the mask mandate that we had at the time had reduced the cases at that time by 90%, so it was clear to me that it was very effective. you know, the governor obviously has his prerogative and make

whatever decisions he thinks are in the best interest of floridians. >> i want to look at the covid surge impact on hospitals, and the dallas news is looking at the hospital in tkaz, and it rights parkland faces an unprecedented pandemic and unprecedented nursing shortages, too many nurses take early retirement rather than face another covid-19 variant, and others cannot find child care and keep their kids safe from the virus, and others are battling various degrees of post traumatic dress disorders. what stories are you hearing from health care workers? >> i talked to health care workers every day, and i talk to hospital leaders every day, and i do talk to people who are at a low right now, and are very frustrated. our state has now said they no longer will help with the staffing shortage that unless

the democrats who are in washington come back and vote for a voter suppression bill, they won't help our hospitals with staffing shortages. there's a lot of down feelings and people where we're doing what we can to keep people up, and the enemy is not each other, it's not republicans or democrats, the enemy is the virus. and what we are doing is standing with the public health and with the doctors to make sure when you send your kids to school they have to wear a mask. when people are working in the hospital they have to be vaccinated. we just need everybody to come together and do that and as far as i am concerned, i feel like other elected officials, we stepped up and others will follow and you will see more people at the local level saying enough, we will protect our people. >> mayor, judge, thank you both. now to a family in florida hoping their loved ones story

will save lives. frank was a father of five and passionate about cars and went to the movie ever friday night and was a small business owner and never took the time away from his store to get vaccinated, and he died from covid three weeks ago and his children are telling others to get their shot before it's too late. one daughter said dad was a healthy 75-year-old with no underlying conditions. he spent the last month of his life in the hospital alone. please, get vaccinated. she joins me now. thank you so much for being here. why did you decide to share your dad's story and what has the response been so far? >> thank you for having me, and thank you to all of the first responders, the doctors and nurses that have been on the front lines of this horrific virus, because i know they tried and did all they could to save my father and unfortunately he chose not to be vaccinated and

is no longer here with us. to answer your question, in sharing my story, i never expected to receive the response that i did. my post on instagram received over 3,000 shares. which is quite significant. i work in social media so for me i'm always checking my matrix, but the number of dms that i have received and am still receiving over a week later, the messages from the touching ones that said to me, you know, i could not get through to my father, my mother, my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, but your story did and they got vaccinated, and it had people sending me selfies with their band-aid from getting vaccinated, and doctors are thanking me, and over 90% of the people are unvaccinated. it's been turning my pain into

purpose. it's an extremely painful experience being but at least seeing that we're hopefully saving lives by telling my story, that's what has kept me going and continue pushing in talk about this. >> people explain who are waiting to get the vaccine? >> i don't pretend to know why my dad waited to get vaccinated. and his girlfriend said it was a matter of timing, and as a small business owner he worked six days a week and was always at his store and opened his business over 36 years ago and spent six days a week at that store. that was his sixth child, so making time for it was not a priority. i want to make it clear that he was not a anti-vaxxer.

he stated to several people he wanted to get vaccinated, and having conversations with my uncle i know he was hesitant and at one point they had a conversation and my dad was concerned about the vaccine changing his dna because he saw a story online or somewhere and that was misinformation, and i know he was hesitant but not a anti-vaxxer. and for the family, we are angry and frustrated and for me personally, it's frustrating knowing there are people out there hesitant, and knowing -- we're cuban-american, and knowing 90 miles away from us there are so many cubans dying and they would be so grateful to have the opportunity so readily available to us, and so many places you could walk in and get the vaccine today and that's a painful point. >> i am so sorry for your loss, and i am so grateful for your time.

thank you so much for talking with us. >> thank you. an arizona superintendent told teachers and students they must wear masks when they go back to school. he is being sued for it. he will join us. a live look at the senate floor where we could see major movement any moment on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. senator chris van hollen on where things stand after this quick break. downy unstopables try one a day 50+ multivitamin gummies. with vitamins c, d & zinc for immunity support. plus 8 b-vitamins for brain support. one a day and done. there's an america we build and one we explore. one that's been paved

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all day we have been tracking efforts to pass the trillion-dollar infrastructure plan in the senate. louisiana senator bill cassidy today revealing more than a dozen of his gop colleagues are showing support for the measure. joining me now, a member of the senate budget and appropriations committee. senator, good to see you. how close are we to a done deal on the bipartisan bill? >> alicia, it's great to be with

you. well, in about half an hour we will vote on what is called the substitute amendment, which is essentially the entire infrastructure modernization bill. then under our rules, if the opposition wants they can continue to debate for another 30 hours. we hope they won't take up all that time, because after the vote tonight assuming we get the super majority, no changes can be made to the bill. so essentially it will be a done deal in substance, but hopefully we will wrap it up certainly no later than very early tuesday morning. >> there's not a lot of weekends where i have a puppy cam on the u.s. senate floor for the entire show to see whether or not that vote will be taken. earlier this week -- last week the senate passed an amendment you have been pushing which includes secure financing for

project, and can you tell me in layman's terms why you thought it was necessary? >> it's important to protect taxpayers and subcontractors on major infrastructure projects funded by the federal government. when a state enters into an agreement, a public or private partnership with the contractor, we want to make sure that they don't leave the contractor on the hook to pay all their subcontractors, because if you default, if you don't have any kind of protection then the taxpayers are on the hook and subcontractors don't get paid. it's a simple bipartisan amendment that says you need to have appropriate bonding, securities in place to make sure taxpayers don't have to foot the bill at the end of the day. >> senator dick durbin said earlier that nancy pelosi has an

extraordinary challenge on her hands with a margin to get both measures passed in the house. as a former member of the house what do you think it will take to get these bills done in tandem? >> well, i have confidence that speaker pelosi and her caucus will be able to pull this off. as you say, we have a two-track process, and together they represent the president's build back better plan. this bipartisan infrastructure piece is one piece, it's an important piece but just one piece. the other part is to reduce the costs of prescription drugs and child care and extend those middle class tax cuts for families, and to do other things to provide every american with an opportunity to get a great education, so i think speaker pelosi will be able to balance those at the end of the day so at the end of the day we won't have one piece of the build back better agenda, we will have the entire thing. >> i want to get your reaction

from the news out of the doj, that jeffrey clark draft add letter and asked acting attorney general during the trump administration, jeffrey rosen to, send it to georgia legislators. it wrongly asserted they should void biden's victory because the doj was actively investigating accusations, and how concern should we be that somebody this high up in the doj got this close to subverting the election? >> we should be very concerned. it shows how fragile democracy can be, and when you have somebody trying to sabotage the result of the elections like the president of the united states, through people willing to do his illegal bidding. we should be very concerned. the good news is the acting attorney general rosen and

attorney general said no, and we saw from the notes that trump said to them, hey, just find that the election is corrupt and i will take care of the rest of it. it shows how corrupt of a president he had. when he was unsuccessful, when trump was unsuccessful at getting the justice department from doing his bidding, that's when he unleashed this violent mob to try and overturn the election. very dangerous moments all along, and we need accountability and we need transparency as to everything that happened. >> senator van hallen, thank you so much for joining ugs. ahead, you will meet an arizona superintendent who says teachers and kids must wear masks when they get back to class and is being sued because of it. next, how overnight power grabs by the taliban raise fears about what will happen once all u.s. troops are withdrawn from afghanistan. we take you there after this.

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the taliban gaining ground in northern afghanistan, seizing most of the provence. there are advanced that deal a serious blow to afghan forces as u.s. troops pull out. nbc's kelly cobia is in afghanistan with more. >> reporter: the taliban is now in control of a city in the north of afghanistan.

it's a city of about 300,000 people, a commercial hub. really an important win for the taliban. we understood from a local government official there that there was heavy fighting there today in the city's center as well as in the airport. this local official confirmed the taliban does, in fact, have control of the city. it's important because it's the largest city they have captured so far. it also has very strong and clear highway links to other major cities in the north of afghanistan, and also a highway link to kabul, which is about 200 miles away. this is the third city the taliban have taken from forces since friday, and the u.s. is providing air support in some ways, mainly in the south trying to prop up afghan troops there really fighting a fierce battle with the taliban there.

as the security situation is changing quite rapidly on the ground, the u.s. embassy over the weekend urged all american citizens in this country to leave afghanistan immediately. alicia. >> kelly cobiella reporting from afghanistan. thank you. and then we'll talk to the superintendent in arizona whose now being taken to court because he dare to try protecting kids and teachers on his campus. we are, of course, waiting for news on that infrastructure bill in the senate. we will let you know if we get it. ahead on the mehdi hasan show, that's 8:00 p.m. here on msnbc. [ nautical horn blows ] i mean just because you look like someone else

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what is your best advice to parents as they send their kids back to school? >> i would ask that they would think about masks in the way

they ought to be thought about. this is not a political statement or an invasion of your liberties. this is a life-saving medical device. asking kids to wear a mask is uncomfortable. but, you know, kids are pretty resilient. we know kids under 12 are likely to get infected and if we don't have masks in schools, this virus will spread more widely. it will probably result in outbreaks in schools. >> francis collins, the director of the national institutes of health says it's simple that back-to-school shopping lists should include masks. it's an effort to wart off new infections especially in the nine states where mask mandates are banned, where it's against the law to mandate masks even in schools. 150 doctors in arizona have urged the governor to roll back his decision, especially as the cdc urges indoor masking for 12 through k schools regardless of

vaccination status, which brings us to the phoenix union high school district. their defiance of the governor's order to keep kids protected led to the district's superintendent and governing board to be sued. phoenix union high school district superintendent joins us now. chad, first talk us through the mask mandate decision. why did you want to push ahead with a mandate despite the ban in your state? >> last monday, the 2nd of august, we brought back nearly 30,000 high school students here in phoenix union, and we welcomed back our 4,000 employees, and we are the fifth largest city high school system, and all told over 100,000 students over 10,000 employees, and their families, and we feel an obligation and responsibility to protect our families. we made that commitment from day

one. the health, safety and wellness will always be priority number one. vaccines are a mitigation strategy at the top of the lists, and mask are number two and we are very confident in our masking requirement. >> oral arguments set to begin august 13th, and governor ducey's office said in a statement your decision decisio has no teeth. your response to that? >> certainly aware of the litigation. can't obviously comment on the specifics of active litigation, but what we can say is this. we have had a very successful first week of school. we said from day one that when we bring our students back we want to keep our students back. we spent one year, almost an entire year in remote learning. our students want to be back on campuses. if you see the pictures and the images and the videos of week one are in phoenix, our staff and students are very excited to be back. they have been interviewed by our local staff and media. they have the same message. although they would prefer not

to wear a mask, i would prefer not to wear a mask but if it means coming back to schools, re-engaging clubs and activities it's certainly worth wearing the mask. >> what's been the response from parents? >> parents are excited. in fact, phoenix union was expected to be down in enrollment this year. we're up nearly 1,000 students. our parents are grateful but not only our parents. we've heard from parents all throughout arizona, throughout our country, even outside of our country and other countries telling us we are proud of the decision that you made. listen, masks have become really political, but this isn't about politics. this is about our people. school systems must play a role not just in educating our youth but playing a role in public health and this is a real critical decision. >> part of the reason i wanted to talk to you is over the course of the last hour we've talked with mayors. we've talked with judges about the way that decisions at the federal level, the decisions at the state level and then impact people like yourself who is a local leader.

i've now the thought about this through the perview of a superintendent. when you have the governor of your state ban a mask mandate, i mean, how do you even -- how do you even process that as an educator? >> yeah. we've said from the minute one that we made this decision that this is not about the governor. it's not about the state. it's about the lives that are entrusted to us. here's what we know. we just this morning received news that a school system passed away i way as a result of a firearm and we have a boy fighting for his life in the hospital as a result of a car accident. those are accident. ignoring science is not an accident. we make a choice to follow the science and the recommendations that we have. we live in a nation that invests billions an trillions in science. we've cured cancers and landed rovers on mars and yet we have viruses that are ravaging our communities. not just our communities, soon our classrooms. we owe it to our students and our educators to stand by the

science that we teach and the science that we trust. >> i'm so sorry for the two losses that you reference there. i also want to ask you since we're talking about science. because of the age of the students that you serve. most are eligible for vaccines. has there been consideration of a vaccine mandate? >> in phoenix union, no, we're not in conversations about a vaccine mandate but we have played a huge role in vaccine dispensing. in fact, yesterday we give out over a thousand vaccines. since january we've been hosting pods, vaccination sites here and been given out tens of thousands of vaccines. we'll continue to play a role in vaccine access. we know that that's the number one mitigation strategy, and as you said we're high school. we also have to worry about the k-8 systems all across the nation. if you're under 12, you don't even have access to the vaccine which is why masks are critically important. that's the second best strategy.

>> what is your message to other superintendents who might find themselves in the same position that you're in? >> my message to the superintendents across the country is what i've given here. there are times when it's our job to stand up and be courageous for our community. sometimes that means you have to take bold risks, but at the end of the day when we have to weigh the consequences of this decision, the legal consequences, maybe the political consequences, at the end of the day the lives at stake must outweigh those legal consequences. we in phoenix union and i know other systems across the country will always choose the people over the politics. >> superintendent gueston, thanks so much for your time. next, a biden campaign promise now reality and historic, but first a preview of what's ahead later tonight on msnbc. >> hey there. i'm joshua janson. tonight at 9:00 eastern on "the week" nikki fried will join us.

we'll discuss the brewing battle in florida over whether students will have to wear masks when they return to the classroom in the fall. join us for "the week" tonight at 9:00 eastern here on msnbc. week" tonight at 9:00 eastern here on msnbc. gum damage. new parodontax active gum repair kills plaque bacteria at the gum line to help keep the gum seal tight. new parodontax active gum repair toothpaste. i can't let diabetes get in my way. i've got way too much stuff to do. so here's what i do. i wear this dexcom g6. it continuously sends my glucose numbers to my phone. and this arrow shows me where i'm headed and how fast. without fingersticks or scanning, making it much easier to keep my glucose in range. which for me is between 100 and 160. and the more time i spend in range, the better i feel. and the more i can check off my list. check out dexcom.com/inrange. let's run it back. ugh, these balls are moist. or is that the damp weight of self-awareness

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impressive! that's 'cuz you all have the same internet. xfinity xfi so powerful, it keeps one-upping itself. can your internet do that? we couldn't sign off this weekend without shining a right on america's new federal judge. new york lawyer loonies lee was assign to be in the court of appeals, the only public defender to reach the public

circuit. a rarity not lost on majority leader chuck schumer. >> we've had very, very few public defenders on that circuit and largely on our federal bench. they tend to be prosecutors and partners in big law first. we're changing all that and getting people who have different walks of life like public defenders and like people from the aclu and like people from different organizations so we have a new perspective on the bench. >> white house deputy press secretary andrew bates wrote, president biden has appointed more black women than any president in american history and it's important no note that lee's nomination is not only a part to counteract hundreds of conservatives mostly white junction but also to reshape the federal court systems with diverse judges with non-traditional backgrounds and non-traditional paths to the bench. that is it for today and for this weekend.

i'm alicia menendez. i'll see you here next weekend for 6:00 p.m. and now it's time for "the mehdi hasan show." >> good evening. i'm in for mehdi hasan. tonight, the infrastructure bill is closer than ever to president biden's desk. we are moments away from a key vote. if it passes the senate, are will the house take it up, and will progressives play ball? i'll ask congressman jamal bowman. then is it too little too late? some say the president should have done more for americans facing eviction before the moratorium expired. you will hear from sabrina davis, one of millions experiencing eviction. plus, retired lieutenant colonel alexander vindman came to america to escape authoritarianism, but has it followed him here? he joins us live. and governor andrew cuomo is heading for imp